God, Chuck, and God-Chuck
by softgrungefic
Summary: What happens to someone when God takes them over? What happens when God leaves them? (Introspection, Chuck is God, Chuck is Not God, Season 11 Coda, Post-Canon, Prophet Chuck, Character Study, Amnesia, Speculation)
1. the sound of a gentle word

**the sound of a gentle word**

"In the beginning, there was me."

* * *

Chuck Shurley started off as just a baby. Little curls and big blue eyes and tiny fists. Developing movement and thought and understanding. Nothing extra attached. Tiny spaces between cells for something to take residence in.

He became a teenager and his eyes stayed blue and his hair stayed curly, and he started growing taller and got headaches and anxious stomach pains. And the spaces filled in with pure light. Nagging thoughts, strange dreams, prickling behind the eyes. Glasses helped, and clarified things close to his face.

He became an adult and stopped growing. Small hands and feet, nervous and shy, staying in his room writing nonsense as his headaches grew worse. Of course he never mentioned them. Struggled through college and kept to himself, squinting at a piece of paper and parsing his strange, strange dreams.

Sometimes he swore his dreams came true.

Other times he swore he saw things in the shadows.

He began to turn his dreams into deeper drafts.

The headaches came more frequently, and the dreams came out of sleep and pounded his head day and night, only easing by siphoning onto paper and downing beer and whisky and rum with cola. Living alone, he found himself in a cluttered den of literature and TV static. Papers everywhere, empty bottles and cans, stains on the furniture and dust on the counters.

He ate takeout pizza with his alcohol, hazy and dulled so he could sleep on the bumpy couch or sometimes his bed-when he could make it up the stairs.

Two tall boys and a man in a trench coat. An amulet unfamiliar. A tingling at the back of his head.

Sometimes he lost time. Five minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, entire days he couldn't remember. A vague light was all he could bring to mind. Sometimes he got snippets of people he'd never met, separate from his dreams-his visions.

His hands shook.

When he stood with the man in the trench coat-the angel. That light, blaring through the house, filled his eyes with the strangest familiarity. Singing between his cells and behind his eyes and he could hear voices and music and the highest tone running through his bones. He must have said something to Castiel but he didn't know what. He felt more like a passenger in his own body than anything else.

More years gone by, leaves falling from the trees.

Sometimes Chuck got himself together enough to date. Most were run-of-the-mill, short-lived relationships. People he met through his editor, or the rare times he went to the bar for his alcohol instead of the liquor store. There were good ones and bad ones. Becky was not one of the good ones. He wasn't sure she was one of the bad ones either. She stole one of his manuscripts. She didn't want him anyway. She was after the tall one. Chuck didn't blame her. Sam had dimples and broad shoulders, after all.

All this time, and he lost more time, but also found himself more often riding in his own body feeling as though someone else steered him around. 2009, 2010? Sitting at his kitchen table, his hands typing but not really under his control. Yet still his thoughts. A strange automatic action. Whisky and the light from his computer, and the dim vision of Hell opening up out of the ground and the slow dive into the darkness.

His visions never stopped, when one or the other died or disappeared. Only changed in what they showed.

He slept more, relying less on alcohol, but found himself less aware of his surroundings, never sure what day it was, unable to judge the passage of time.

He heard conversations and prayers, more and more every day.

He stopped leaving the house.

It seemed every vision he had, something horrible happened. Black sludge, red blood, golden glowing veins and lights dropping from the sky. His bones ached and his ears rang when he saw the angels fall to earth. Their voices filled his head in a clamor of bells and screams and shattering glass. Asking for help, reaching out for him-but not him at all.

Why?

Why did their voices come to him, shrieking for God and salvation?

Why did his shoulder blades and teeth and eyes hurt all the time?

Why did his body move on its own?

Who spoke in the back of his skull?

Murmurs like thunder saying "Sleep, let go, let me do this."

"You are my son." But Chuck's father was a bald gay man, not a disembodied voice.

"I am your father. You are my son. You are your father and your son. Ghosts live in your atoms."

Sometimes when Chuck looked in the mirror-on the days he was able to eat and move-he could have sworn he saw a rim of blue-white light around his edges and an abyss in the pupils of his eyes.

Wasting away. He bruised at the slightest touch and the bags under his eyes grew darker, like storm clouds under blue sky eyes.

He didn't drink anymore but neither did he eat. Or sleep. His fingers typed out his constant visions, and the pain became something almost comforting. Always there. Normal. His roof leaked but he never did anything about it. His phone rang but he didn't answer. The internet disconnected but it didn't matter because he still had his word program, and when the electricity went out he had piles and piles of paper, and a ballpoint pen in worn-down, trembling fingers.

His awareness dimmed.

Nothingness.

He opened his eyes once to see firmer arms and steadier hands and the same old computer, but with lights on overhead and an electric hum. He went back to the nothingness.

The next time he opened his eyes he saw himself in the mirror, shirtless. He had weight. Muscles around his stomach and shoulders. Fat on his chest and thighs, around his waist. Lighter, softer bags under his eyes-somehow the color of them startled him. The blue reminded him of an ocean he couldn't remember going to, with a pebbly beach and mountains and fog.

His mind went to that ocean and he rested there, formless, drifting in the sea breeze with the gulls. Admiring the steam rising from between the trees in the distance.

Sometimes he caught glimpses of blood and tears and sharp blades, but mostly he just floated in the tides with the jellyfish.

There were days he found himself thrown back and forth between the cold ocean, non-existence, and a warmly lit bar. Riding in his own head and seeing strong arms as he wrote unfamiliar words on his decades old computer plugged into nothing as a small dog clicked across the wooden floors.

He felt like vomiting.

He spoke to himself.

"Listen, Chuck." He didn't whisper, just spoke in a matter of fact way. "It's better this way. I'm you. You're me. I'm as much Chuck Shurley as you are Carver Edlund. You're my pseudonym. My alias. We blend in. At least, we used to." He leaned back on the booth, and watched the dog run back and forth. "I'm a ghost, a prophet, an author, a God."

The nausea wouldn't go away.

Chuck couldn't feel anything other than his burning eyes.

Gone, again.

Snippets.

High school girls and a stage.

Castiel with blood in his eyes.

The Beach Boys.

Black smoke.

A lone guitar. The one he bought in college.

Typing a thousand more words, a hundred thousand, a million.

A man even shorter than him. Pathetic. Sometimes on the verge of tears.

That dog again.

Pieces of visions of a woman so familiar he didn't know her name and thick fog and the boys with black veins streaking up their arms.

Back to the rainy ocean, disembodied, with his own voice echoing through the foothills—

"We should probably talk."

* * *

NOTES: also can be found on AO3 under the same title.

I have some complicated thoughts and feelings on Chuck's status as God.  
After writing 1000+ words about those complicated feelings (which can be found on my tumblr .com tagged as meta posted may 5th) I decided to write this


	2. Aster

**Aster**

Everything is entirely strange, when the last time you existed was six years ago.

* * *

Sunlight, soft and full of dust through the blinds. Drifting. Gentle. Golden. Quiet.

A tiny twittering from the thorn bush outside of the window.

The distant sound of traffic-a dim, muffled rush.

Chuck lay still, gazing up at the ceiling as the light floated through the air. He felt like he was still dreaming, but something sat differently… The slow beat of his heart and the hushed morning. He breathed calmly. In and out. A blink passed like a thousand days. The shadows hung still against the walls, darkening the stripes of the wallpaper. Just a few bright, vibrant spots of blue and caramel.

A crow croaked from the yard.

A rush of air pushed into Chuck's lungs and he let out a sigh with widened eyes. He used his elbows to prop himself up, and looked around his bedroom. So calm. He swung his legs out over the side of the bed and dug his toes into the carpet. It seemed….. Softer than he remembered. And cleaner. He swallowed. His mouth tasted a little metallic, like he'd cut his gums. But also liked he'd eaten something sweet. He licked his teeth and looked to the window.

Such bright light between the slats of the shades. A bird flew past and sent its little darting shadow through the room.

Chuck parted the blinds and peered out onto the mostly empty road. A little dusty, very bright and rhododendron bushes in his yard littered fallen, decaying flower heads around the rusted out body of his old motorcycle. Leaves fluttered on the branches of the trees.

He didn't know what day it was, or what month... or even what _year_.

The thought came to him like a fallen feather. He stared down at his yard. Blue-purple flowers carpeted the ground, many-petaled and yellow-centered. He didn't remember planting them but he immediately adored their color. Much better than grass. Little white butterflies drifted over the flowers. Settling sometimes, flittering away other times.

Chuck pulled back from the window and almost tripped trying to get to his desk-piled up with books, loose papers, uncapped pens, and his clock sitting on top. 8 am. He looked up to the calendar hanging on the wall. June.

June, when? He didn't even recognize the calendar-space themed, or something. A galaxy emblazoned across the top. He pulled it from the wall and flipped to the front.

"Hubble Space Telescope."

2016.

That felt strange but Chuck couldn't figure out why. He shook his head and hung the calendar back on its little nail. He stood looking at it for a few minutes-didn't realize how long it had been until he suddenly shook himself and turned around and the light had gone less golden and the room darkened as the sun rose higher in the sky-no longer able to slice horizontally through the blinds… Chuck opened them up, and the window as well, letting in the light and the warm fresh air. He took a deep breath and took his robe off, draping it over his bed. It seemed cleaner than usual-more vibrant blues and paler creams than he was used to. Odd. He pulled his shirt over his head and that too was a brighter white than he remembered. He shook his head and finished undressing.

A cool shower freshened him up. Made his hair curl around droplets of water and washed the creaky, dusty feeling from his limbs. The breeze through the barely open window set goosebumps rising up his arms but… he liked the feeling. It invigorated him-he felt less sluggish and hazy now, standing in the dark bathroom, only lit by what little sunlight came in through the window. He squinted at himself in the mirror. Hard to see… He turned on the overhead light, dazzled only for a minute as it reflected into his face.

Once adjusted, though, he began to inspect himself. Everything felt new, but familiar. But all like a dream. Imaginary, but all too real. The bags under his eyes, not extremely dark but noticeable nonetheless. Brown hair with flecks of silver, normal. Scruffy beard, some sunny freckles, a little bit of a burn around his collar, nose and shoulders. Had he been out in the sun recently? That seemed out of character, for him. He ran his fingers down the side of his nose, across his cheek, to his neck. Looked past his eyelashes, long and barely curling upward.

Had his eyes always been so blue? But there was a little bit of… gold? Just in the left eye, a fleck of brown-and-caramel circling part of his iris and streaking out in rays. A little daytime eclipse. He blinked and glanced down at the sink. He hadn't noticed himself gripping at the edges. He let go and flexed his fingers in the open air.

"Who… am I?"

Of course, he knew his name was Chuck Shurley, after his dad… Yes. Chuck Shurley, author of many books under a pseudonym. Silly, trite books, about… monsters. Angels? And demons. He looked back into the mirror, holding his breath a few seconds before letting it push back out through his nose. He got up close to inspect his eyes, though his own head blocked some of the light and made that a tad difficult.

But there they were. Blue, with that fleck. Such black pupils, and for a second he felt like he could find stars somewhere in there but of course that was a ridiculous thought. But… No, must have been imagining things. He frowned and went out into the hallway, and left such thoughts behind with the mirror.

His other eye was normal, anyway-just really blue.

He went downstairs and found, on his kitchen table, beside the computer, a little purple flower like the ones in the front yard. He sniffed it. It smelled kind of… minty. And delicate. He put it down on the keyboard and turned to the living room. The doors were closed, all towering and slatted with black wood. He pulled them open and cool air greeted him from the darkness. So dark. He felt his way across the room, to the window behind the couch. Hit his knee on the table holding his record player, as he parted the curtains.

"Ow…" Chuck frowned down at his leg, but drew the window blinds up as well to let in all the tree-filtered sunlight. It tinted the room green and Chuck took a deep breath as he pushed the window open as well. So clean. So… new.

He climbed over the back of the couch to sit down. Looked across the room, past the table with his computer, out the kitchen window. He could just see the leaves of a thorny tree in his front yard. And beyond that, a house.

It all seemed so… so peaceful. So serene. In the distance, an ice cream truck played its tiny music box theme, and nearby a bird chirped. The plants in the backyard rustled, as a breeze slipped between everything and into the house. Chuck closed his eyes. Leaned his head against the back of the couch and just relaxed.

His stomach growled.

Loudly.

 _Really_ loudly.

When was the last time Chuck had eaten…? It felt like a _year_.

But when he hurried into the kitchen, he found the refrigerator empty. The cupboards… mostly empty as well, but for a bottle of maple syrup and some crackers. The bare counters, cool against his palms, seemed out of place. Actually, everything seemed too… clean. Empty, barren. No piles of crap anywhere, except for loose leaves of paper all over the kitchen table and the coffee table and even the floor, in places. But even the dining room seemed overly airy and open, with nothing on or around the foosball table except a unicycle propped against one of its legs.

Chuck stared into the sink.

Why did it feel so strange to be somewhere so tidy? He looked over his shoulder at the green living room. Pure white lampshade, vibrantly striped couch, shining wood floor under a colorful rug. The bar sat glossy and unused. The recliner, like new. Chuck sighed, and rubbed his forehead. He felt so strange.

And again, super hungry.

He settled for crackers and stood in the middle of the kitchen until he'd eaten half the box.

And then he didn't quite know what to do. So he dropped the box on the floor, and left it there-he ran out into the hallway, sharp left into his glass-paneled front door, nearly injuring himself throwing it open. The second he set foot on the porch the world got louder, and he could hear a dog barking and children laughing and the hum of traffic and the steady thud of a helicopter passing overhead. He breathed hard and stared at the houses lining the block. All normal. His own house, behind him, deep red and black-who had chosen those colors, anyway!? Had it been him? Had he really decided on that combination? He didn't even like red that much. Quite the opposite, in fact-his favorite color was green.

He stood out there, bare feet and thighs. Just a tank-top and his shorts. But it was too warm out for him to mind, particularly. Down the stairs into the yard. He crouched down to look at the purple flowers surrounding the pathway to his front steps. So beautiful, out in the sunlight. Full of life and color. He grew so entranced staring at them that he didn't notice the tiny white butterfly drifting past his face until it landed on his arm. He kept very still and watched it as it opened and closed its wings, leisurely and calm. It tickled. He let it stay there for a while, and when it finally fluttered away, he stood up.

The mailbox stood by the sidewalk, a little crooked but still upright. Chuck wondered if the mailman had hit it… He opened the front and frowned at the tightly packed mail. It took some trying but, after a good deal of tugging and bending papers he got it all out in a rolled up wad, and closed the front. He huffed. Sat on the ground, unrolling all the paper against the sidewalk and flipping through it. Junk. Catalogs and credit card ads and old bills. The power was on inside, though… Electricity, water...The most recent bill, however, seemed to be dated years old. With two shutoff notices.

"This is… nuts." Chuck sifted through his mail. He found letters. Set those aside, double-checked he had everything useful, and crumpled up the spam to throw in the recycle bin beside his house. He took the letters inside with the most recent bills and the shutoff notices for power and water. Those, he left on the kitchen table, to consider later on.

The letters, however, he placed on the coffee table as he sat on the couch, and one by one, he opened them.

The first, a card from April of 2010. "Happy Birthday, Chuck. I saw your books at the bookstore and bought one. Love you. Papa."

There were a few of those birthday cards. Each one grew increasingly more depressing. "Happy birthday Chuck, haven't heard from you in a while. Call or write me back. I read some more of your books and I miss you. Love, Papa."

"Happy Birthday, Chuck. Just let me know you're okay. Love, Papa."

And then a little postcard from that very year. A picture of Multnomah Falls. And on the back… "Chuck. It's your birthday. I haven't heard from you in six years, and every time I have gone to your house it has been empty and dark. I'm worried. The police have been useless all these years. I hope you're alive. Papa."

Chuck swallowed down the heavy feeling in his chest. Six years. What had happened in the past six years? He remembered only pieces of dream-like moments, of blinding light, tall men, a bar and the Beach Boys and a high school play. He thought he might have gone to the Grand Canyon at some point, and kissed someone at the edge of a ravine. But he didn't know for sure.

And all this time, his dad had been sending him birthday cards, worried sick, wondering where his only son was.

Chuck buried his face in his hands. His eyes stung and he took deep breaths.

"Who am I?"

He reached for the phone-hands trembling and his movements so frantic he almost knocked the lamp off of the side table. He steadied it and dialed his father's number by muscle memory, pressing the receiver hard against his head as he sat with his knees to his chest.

It rang for a while.

Would anyone even answer?

Right as he felt he should give up, the line clicked, and after what felt like ages he heard his father's voice say his name. And it really felt like his name, then, like nothing else would have fit better than the simplicity of "Chuck." And he couldn't hold back that thick feeling in his throat-he made an ugly noise and said, "I'm sorry—"

His eyes blurred but he kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't call you, I'm sorry I never answered your letters, I'm not dead, I'm sorry Papa."

"Shh, shh—" Some soft noises, through the line. His dad with a gentle voice, quietly clearing his throat. "My boy, it's alright. It's alright, go ahead and cry but it's alright..."

Chuck coughed and took a shaking breath. "Sorry," came out in a hoarse whisper, and he coughed again. "I just woke up today and I don't know where I've been but I'm okay so don't… worry."

His father was silent a moment, but shortly said, "I got a card in the mail yesterday, from you. Not your handwriting, but your name at the end, and all it said was 'I've been busy, but I'm alive,' and that was enough for me." He cleared his throat again. "So long as my little boy is alive, that's enough. You don't gotta explain anything to your old man."

"Okay—" Chuck's voice came out almost a squeak. "I love you."

"I love you too, kiddo. Do you wanna talk about this, or…?"

Chuck sniffled, and he hugged himself as he thought. "I… I wanna… I just want you to talk to me."

His father made a gruff noise, but he started to speak. Just simple stuff. "Started gardening to pass the time, so I've got some orange roses I think you'd like and boy do they attract bugs," and "Saw your ma at the grocery store with her husband-didn't recognize me with this mustache I've been growing and I had a good chuckle when she realized it was me. And she said she's been missing you too." And one line to make Chuck breathe deep—"Your sister just had a baby, so you better call her." On into a lengthy description of the baby's little toes and hands and her big blue eyes and how she had tiny curls just like Chuck had when he was a baby.

Just listening to all that, Chuck smiled. He dried his face on his arm and lay down on the couch while his father talked about how his week had gone. Chuck's breathing calmed and he closed his eyes and let the familiarity of his papa's voice wash through his head. It couldn't last forever, though. Eventually he had to go.

"Now, I've got a date coming over tonight-that's right, your ol' pops is still goin' strong at sixty-five! So, I gotta go, but I'm coming up there soon. I have to see my son's face again so I know this is all real. It's been too long since I hugged my little boy"

Chuck sighed. "Okay." He sat up and said, "Okay, just let me know when you're coming to visit so I can prepare. I don't have any food, or anything…"

"No food?! Goodness, boy, I'm gonna have to bring something. See you soon, for certain, and I love you, and don't ever vanish like that ever again."

"I promise… Love you too. Bye." Chuck hung up and sat very still for a moment, staring into the kitchen.

Eventually, he had to move. He went into the kitchen to splash water on his face and turned his attention to the shutoff notices on his table. They were wrinkled but luckily fairly clean and dry-a lot of the mail had been protected by the thick spam catalogs shoved into the mailbox. Electricity shutoff seemed barely older than water, both dated to a few months after his 39th birthday. He gave them a cursory read. Pretty basic warnings that the power and other utilities would be shut off without further notice. And yet, there Chuck was six years later, having taken a shower and used the lights with no problem. There had been no notifications of returned power, or anything important from later than mid-2010. Anything newer had been junk.

Any notices left on the door had long been torn or worn away, as well, so he really had very little information to go off of.

Well, if he got a bill in the mail at the beginning of July, he'd know.

He didn't know what to do with himself, at that point. Maybe… get dressed? Go to the store? Wait, did he even have money to buy groceries with? He shook the thought from his head and muttered to himself, "One step at a time."

First, clothes. Thin jeans with holes in the knees, a light linen shirt, and his Converse. Simple. Easy. Comfortable and breezy for the warm weather. Though he felt a little odd with his arms bared. (In pajamas, bare arms were fine, but fully dressed? What a strange feeling.) He dressed quickly and paced around his bedroom for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts and trying to figure out what he should do next.

Wallet.

On the nightstand by his bed. Chuck grabbed it, worn leather soft in his hands. He had… a brand new card, a recent ID, and forty dollars in cash… So he would probably be fine. But he didn't know the security code for the card. He couldn't even remember the code from the one he'd had before. Hopefully he wouldn't need it. He pocketed the wallet and half ran down the stairs. He almost went outside before realizing he'd left his keys-where, though?

Kitchen, probably? He remembered leaving his keys on the kitchen table a lot so he checked beside the computer. He found them on top of the printer and stuck those in his pocket as well. So, he had all that… He spotted a pair of sunglasses that seemed new and unfamiliar, and grabbed them on his way to shut the living room window.

And then he could leave.

Locked the front door behind him and looked up at the high blue sky.

A butterfly floated past his head and landed amongst the purple asters.

He would be okay.

* * *

NOTE:

You may or may have not noticed I've suddenly posted several fics. This is because I have been regularly updating my AO3 account but not . So I thought I'd do a batch update and upload my recent fics from the past few months, most of which (all of which) are about Chuck. And a reminder that my AO3 account, the username of which is the same as my username, updates more frequently and the stories on it are usually also more polished as it is easy for me to go in and edit the stories.

Now onto the note about this story itself:

Some explanation is in order.

This entire fic may make more sense if I explain that it was inspired by a conversation with my friend Sonya. We were talking about a scenario in which God and the Darkness combined and formed a soul and that soul was created within the body of Chuck Shurley, thus bringing into existence a new Chuck. In my head this also became a purely human Chuck, not a God Chuck. Not even a Chuck who knows what has happened. Some of the memories were wiped from his head-those of season 4, and such. Some of the memories he doesn't have because I supposed I am also somewhat linking this to the other recent fic (the sound of a gentle word) I wrote dealing with Chuck and God and God-Chuck, where Chuck was so absorbed in God and wasn't really experiencing the world anymore. So the timeline I got is 2010 is around the time of Swan Song, when you see that serene Chuck vanish. So I figure, that's when God starts traveling and dating and fucking around, and leaves the house empty, staying wherever he feels like staying, etc. But Chuck also has modified memories of before those times-can't remember the Winchesters or anything. Thinks it's all pretend.


End file.
